Everyone needs a change
by Taliara
Summary: Death is bored and looking for something new...
1. Default Chapter

This is not going to be a story about Judith Holman, it will mainly be about Death. Please please please review because I have never written fanfiction before and I want to know what you think.

Judith Holman (second assistant deputy head of the undead languages department, Teachers Guild, Ankh Morpork) was not looking where she was going. There may be a place on the Disc where you can do this without quickly becoming a chalk outline,# but Ankh Morpork is not it. In Ankh Morpork, not looking where you are going is just one of many ways you can accidentally commit suicide, and has an unbeaten success rate.

The reason Judith was not looking at what was in front of her was that she was looking at somewhere inside her head, and what she saw there worried her. The place she was looking was the very near future.

Judith was generally worried about something- it was a part of who she was. As a little girl, she had worried that Mr Teddy might fall out of bed. As a slightly bigger girl, she had worried about her spelling enough to check every other word with the teacher##. Her parents had taught her to worry about Standards and Impressions and Acquaintances, so she had spent every day of her life doing just that. In short, Judith was the type of person who, if an angel appeared and offered her eternal happiness in paradise, would worry about whether she'd left the oven on.

The worry occupying her at that moment was her job. There were all the usual worries of course; the fact that she didn't like it, the fact that she wasn't paid enough, the fact that she had no respect for her superiors and the fact that that meant everyone; but an extra worry had been added by this mornings meeting.

It hadn't been her fault, she told herself. She had given her normal report, the one amounting to "we haven't done badly, considering." but then the guest speaker had given her a piercing stare and asked what language the undead actually spoke. Judith had been forced to say that they usually spoke the language of whatever country they lived in, and that awful woman had asked, in that case, what they actually taught, and Judith had said...what she had tried to say was something about culture and history, but somehow she hadn't been able to lie, and it had come out that their department hadn't had anyone to teach for over a decade.

Now she would be lucky to still have a job at the end of the week. That...person had suggested that they taught living languages instead, and had immediately drawn out a course schedule, which appeared to have no place for Judith. Stupid, arrogant woman... now what had been her name? Susan something?

#Usually because you have already become someone's dinner

##Who spelled apple A-P-U-L

Susan Sto Helit glanced around the room and sighed. The meeting was dragging, and the people in it were irritating her.

When the head of the Teachers Guild had cautiously asked her to be guest speaker at their guild meeting it had sounded like a good opportunity- and it _had _been. Most of the teachers that they produced seemed to do nothing with the young minds entrusted to them except make them even younger; Susan had been looking forward to telling them all exactly what they were doing wrong. She knew she was good at being listened to, so she had planned to suggest a certain amount of reorganisation. What she had not planned to do was lose someone's job.

Susan was Deaths adopted granddaughter, and had inherited some special talents. She could see things as they really were, bogeymen and all; she could disappear; she could stop time; and she could remember the future.

As soon as she had seen Miss Holman, she had remembered hating her. Susan knew that something the woman did in the future was going to effect her, and was going to make her very, very angry.

Even so, Susan felt a little guilty, and the way no one here had given Judith a thought since she left annoyed her. She sighed again and began to fade. Everyone here would forget her in a moment, and it was nearly time to meet Lobsang.


	2. Chapter 2

On many worlds, people believe that Death is a cloaked skeleton with a scythe. They are right.

On some worlds, people believe that Death is a beautiful woman. They are also right.

On one of the less imaginative worlds, a lot of people believe that death is just a force of nature. Even they are right. Death is what you make it.

Discworld is a world of the first sort.

At this moment# Death was staring glumly at a broken pot.

I DON'T KNOW. I JUST DON'T THINK I'M AN ARTY PERSON. He said to his servant, Albert.

"I agree with you there, master. It's all nonsense, really, when you think about it. There's more than enough of the world already without making any more."

NO. IT WAS GOING TO HAVE A CAT ON IT. THERE CAN NEVER BE TOO MANY CATS.

Albert sighed. He had worked for Death long enough to know the signs: if he was trying something new, the job was getting him down again. Of course, a job like that would get anyone down after a few millennia, but things could get really _strange_ when the master got bored. If you were lucky he'd just make pots or start playing the violin. If you were unlucky-

IT'S A SHAME ABOUT THE PLATES, TOO.

"What?" said Albert, jerked out of his speculations.

THOSE PLATES THAT YOU CARRIED IN HERE AND DROPPED. THAT WAS WHAT MADE ME BREAK THE POT.

"Oh! Shame, yes." Albert muttered, guiltily.

WHY WERE YOU CARRYING A STACK OF PLATES AROUND, ALBERT?

"I...er...thought they needed airing."

HMM...

Death turned away and glanced at his desk.

I MUST GO. I HAVE A JOB TO DO.

# In as much as there were moments where Death lived. In his house, time didn't so much pass as stretch like a kind of forth dimension chewing gum.

Judith still wasn't looking where she was going. In truth, she didn't really know where she was going, or what she would do when she got there. She'd never had a home in the city outside of the Teachers Guild, and she couldn't go back there now.

Judith sighed quietly. It hadn't been a good job. People with good jobs were managers, directors, officials, all single word titles, whereas something with as many syllables as second assistant deputy head of the undead languages department was never going to get you invited to important dinners. No, the pay, the hours and the work had all been awful, but at least it had kept her busy. When she wasn't busy, Judith tended to drift around and worry.

Then she stepped in to the Ankh.

Actually, stepping in to the Ankh was practically impossible. The thick crust meant that you would need to be a troll in high-heeled boots to make much impact. What Judith actually did was trip on to it and get one of her hands stuck. This is the point where most of Ankh Morpork's citizens would swear, but Judith had been well brought up.

"Oh dear!" she screamed. This didn't make her feel much better.

YES. OH DEAR INDEED. Said a voice. This made her feel much, much worse.

"Who are you?" Judith squeaked.

DEATH. It said. DEATH IS WHO I AM AND DEATH IS WHAT I DO.

"I'm going to die?"

I THINK IT QUITE POSSIBLE.

"Possible?" Reaching the conclusion that someone this well informed about her death needed respect, she quickly added "Sir?"

YOU HAVE...

Death took an hourglass from his robe

...FIVE MINUTES TO GIVE ME AN ALTERNATIVE.

"Alternative?"

IS THERE A JOB MORE FUN THAN COLLECTING SOULS?


End file.
